http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/crime/2010-03-03/story/woman_charged_with_taking_baby_melvin_duclos_has_history_of_deceptIt was a parent's worst nightmare: A newborn son taken from a Jacksonville couple Tuesday by a woman posing as a child welfare worker.
The ending was quick. And in this case, happy.
Sheriff John Rutherford announced just after dawn that 3-week-old Melvin Duclos had been found safe and was reunited with his parents. Melvin was taken about 4:45 p.m. from his home in the 6200 block of North Ironside Drive and found unharmed in a home in the 5500 block of Cabot Drive North around dawn.
Photos: Abducted Duclos Baby Found Safe
A fingerprint lifted from Melvin's home led police to charge Jasmine Marie White, 19, with kidnapping and interference with custody in the case. White, found inside the North Cabot Drive home owned by her mother, was also served with a 2009 warrant charging her with fraudulent use of personal identification information.
Outside the townhouse were empty boxes for a child car seat, a bouncy seat and something called a baby care cart. Neighbor Jay Normand said his neighbor had two elementary school age sons but no infant.
He said he did not often see Jasmine White.
The unemployed fast-food restaurant worker and alternative high school student is being held without bail. She is scheduled for her first court appearance Thursday morning.
Rutherford said police are still investigating what led to the kidnapping and he would not discuss a motive. Her arrest docket said she gave police "several different versions" of why she was found with Melvin. At one point she identified him as her daughter, though he is a boy. She also told police Melvin's parents asked her to watch their son, though they told police and reporters they didn't know White.
After further interviewing, the suspect confirmed posing as an employee of Children and Families and getting the boy from his parents under false pretenses, the report said.
Police records show White has a history of deception. She was arrested in 2008 on an auto theft charge after a man who said he met her while she worked in a Krystal restaurant told police she gave him a false name and convinced him to rent a car for her, an arrest report shows. The man accused White of not returning the car and police tracked her down. The charge was later dropped, but White has yet to pay $1,000 restitution ordered in the case, records show.
Records show that the 2009 warrant accuses her of using an unidentified woman's personal information to obtain a Florida ID card with her photo attached. White is accused of using the ID to sign a lease.
White was identified as the kidnapping suspect off a fingerprint left behind on a document given to Melvin's parents at their home. Rutherford said the fingerprint, lifted by forensic investigators, was scanned through the Sheriff's Office AFIS fingerprint database and matched with a 2008 auto theft arrest of White's.
Police, with help of crime analysts, went to the Cabot Lane address linked to White and several others. Rutherford said White, her mother and others were found inside sleeping. He also said there's no indication White's mother knew about the kidnapping. Latricia White could not be reached for comment.
Rutherford said the fingerprint was the key to finding Melvin, but he also said police were working with some video images of a woman who followed the Duclos family while they were at Shands Jacksonville hospital before the kidnapping.
"Without the fingerprint, it would have been much more difficult," Rutherford said. "We knew what she looked like, we just didn't know for sure who she was until the print came through. Then the difficulty was trying to figure out where was she."
Arriving home with his wife and son just after 9 a.m., Augustin Duclos said the couple did not know the woman who took their child.
They had seen her on an elevator at Shands Jacksonville about 12:45 Tuesday afternoon, where they went for a checkup for Duclos' wife following her Caesarian section.
After buying milk for their son, the Ducloses arrived home. The woman pulled in behind them, he said. Police said she identified herself as working for the Department of Children and Families.
"She said, 'You know I've been following you for two days,'" he said.
The woman said police were outside and that she had to take the baby. Duclos said the woman had a white badge and gave him papers telling them how to take classes that would allow them to get their son back.
"They looked good," he said of the paperwork.
Children and Families officials later searched a database of employee names and found no match for a name the woman used, agency spokesman John Harrell said.
Duclos said he also questioned her about where the police were.
"She said, 'They are out there,'" he said.
Duclos said he wasn't sure if maybe someone had reported him to the Department of Children and Families, but said he waited about 30 minutes before calling the agency. When he got no response, he called police, he said.
The nightmare began when he discovered what happened, he said.
"I spent all night crying," he said. "But now I have my baby and I am happy. It's a miracle."
Rutherford said the Sheriff's Office, FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and Florida Department of Law Enforcement spent the night search for the baby, who was taken from a neighborhood of brick-faced, ranch-style homes west of Blanding Boulevard a couple of miles north of Interstate 295.
A statewide Amber Alert posted just after midnight for Melvin was canceled just before 7.
Rutherford singled out Shands Jacksonville for its "invaluable" assistance in the case and he praised patrol officers, crime analysts, forensic investigators and homicide detectives whose worked led police to Melvin.
"Just a fantastic job," Rutherford said. "That was a tremendously effective and efficient investigation that they all conducted last night."
Dan Leveton, a Shands spokesman, said, "That's kind of Sheriff Rutherford to say, but this was really their case."
The suspect didn't work for Shands or the University of Florida, the employer of the hospital's physicians. Nor was she anyone who had been seen around the hospital frequently, Leveton added.
The part of the hospital where the doctor's visit took place is open to the public so that patients can access their doctors, Leveton said.
Edward Jones, who lives next to the Duclos home, said he's not surprised they believed the ruse.
"They are so trusting," Jones said. "They believe in America. They believe in what people say."
Jones said Augustin Duclos had lived in the neighborhood for about five years. Duclos's wife arrived from Haiti about two years ago. Jones said Duclose told him his wife was confused by the person who came to the door.
"He was in a daze," he said.
He said Duclos worked as a mail carrier, although a relative also said he owns a cleaning service. Duclos confirmed that he works for the postal service.
Harrell, of the Department of Children and Families, said a legitimate agency worker would not take custody of a child on the spot unless it was a matter of imminent danger. He said people can confirm a Children and Families employee’s identification by phoning a statewide information number — (800) 96-ABUSE.
"We're very alarmed, very concerned that someone would just walk up to someone's home, identify themselves as a DCF employee and walk off with a child," Harrell had said.
The Ducloses came to the United States from Haiti 11 years ago, a relative said. He said Augustin, 37, and that the couple also has a 15-month-old child.
The abduction echoed elements of the 1998 kidnapping of Kamiyah Mobley, an infant taken from Shands, then called University Medical Center, by a woman dressed in scrubs. That case has never been solved.
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